Who'd a thunk it? IBM has a hyperconverged play – feel the POWER

Big Blue's mighty machine needs Nutanix software nuggets

.NEXT In the hyperconverged infrastructure appliance space, x86 rules. This might appear to exclude IBM, having sold its x86 servers to Lenovo, but you'd be surprised.

Strolling around the exhibition at Nutanix's .NEXT event in Nice, you see some 30 partners and a lot of food and drink stands. There are several backup partners – Exagrid, Commvault, Druva, HYCU, Rubrik, Unitrends, Veeam, Veritas. Third-party data protection is a big part of the Nutanix ecosystem.

On the hardware side there's Lenovo with its servers running Nutanix software. Standard. And Dell EMC with the XC HCA system. Then you see IBM.

Big Blue's stand is about hyperconverged systems powered by Nutanix, POWER systems. These are 1U and 2U appliances running Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform software with AHV. IBM pitches them for high-performance workloads, where POWER beats x86 machines.

IBM says they deliver 80 per cent more performance per dollar on average than x86 servers.